Erdogan calls on Muslim countries to unite and confront Israel

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on Muslim leaders to unite and confront Israel, days after scores of Palestinians were killed by Israeli snipers as they marked 70 years of Israeli occupation.

Speaking at an extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Friday, Erdogan said Israel should be held accountable over the killings which drew widespread international condemnation and triggered a wave of protests from Asia, through the Middle East, to North Africa.

"To take action for Palestinians massacred by Israeli bandits is to show the whole world that humanity is not dead," Erdogan told the group of Muslim leaders gathered in Turkey's largest city, Istanbul.

The Turkish president described Israel's killing of Palestinians as "thuggery, atrocity and state terror," and said the US' recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital would inevitably haunt it.

 

'US part of the problem'

On Monday, just as the US went ahead with the controversial relocation of its embassy to Jerusalem, 62 Palestinians, including five children, were killed and more than 2,700 wounded as the Israeli army fired live ammunition and tear gas at protesters who had assembled hundreds of metres from a 1949 armistice line between Gaza and Israel.

The protesters in the besieged enclave had gathered to commemorate Nakba Day - an event in 1948 when Zionist paramilitaries ethnically cleansed Palestinian cities and towns. About 750,000 people were forcibly expelled from historical Palestine.

The Istanbul summit was attended by several heads of state, but Saudi Arabia, the host of the 57-member OIC, sent only a senior foreign ministry official. Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE also deployed lower level ministers.

Speaking at the conference, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said the Palestinian cause had "become a symbol for oppressed peoples everywhere" and condemned Israel for "brutal massacre" of peaceful demonstrators.

"Who among us does not know the declared siege forced on Gaza Strip and collective punishment against its population?" the emir said.

"The Gaza Strip has been transformed into a large concentration camp for millions of people who are deprived of their most basic rights to travel, education, work and medical treatment.

"When their sons take arms they are called terrorists, and when they stage peaceful demonstrations they are called extremists, and are shot dead with live ammunition."

For his part, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said the US had become "part of the problem and not the solution" and called the relocation of the embassy "an act of aggression against the Islamic nation, against Muslims and Christians".

Jordanian King Abdullah II urged for the adoption of urgent measures to back "the resistance of Palestinians", while Iranian President Hasan Rouhani called for economic and political measures against the US and Israel.

Late on Friday, the OIC issued a final communique calling on the United Nations to form an international investigation into the killings in Gaza; the creation of an international protection force for Palestinians, and for the OIC to place economic restrictions on any countries, companies or individuals who recognise Israel's annexation of Jerusalem.

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